


Amazing Grace

by dragonofdispair



Series: Hymns of the Guiding Hand [5]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Mythology/Religion, Chronic Pain, Courtroom, Depression, Gen, Gods, Justice and Revenge, OC centric, Politics, Recovery, Religion, Self-Harm, divine intervention, shadowplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 12:29:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6051651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the revolution runs its course, it doesn’t mean good things for everyone. Outright war has been averted, but Mortilus still holds Cybertron’s fate and he will only be satisfied with vengeance and death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [12drakon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/12drakon/gifts).



> Requested by 12drakon: “Can I see what came of Mirage’s intended noble bonded, Virtue?”
> 
> Beta'd by FHC_Lynn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timing’s a bit vague in the first chapter b/c Virtue spends the narrative pretty disconnected, but he’s whammied at the end of Ch 7 of _Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory_ during the festival of Solomus and then swept up in the arrests during the epilogue, over 400 vorns later.
> 
> This first chapter is the dark side of divine intervention. Somewhat happy ending, b/c Optimus insisted, but trigger warnings for depression, self injury, attempted shadowplay and a ‘bot in constant pain.

_‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,_

_And grace my fears relieved_

          -- John Newton, _“Amazing Grace”_

.

.

.

YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THIS.

Virtue woke from recharge, the dream already fading as he trembled on the plain, hard berth.

As always, The Words trumpeted across his awareness. An indelible chorus of voices merged into a single intent, those words were the last thing he heard before recharge, the first thing he heard each morning. They haunted his dreams and whispered through his waking thoughts. They throbbed with echoes of that first debilitating pain every breem of every orn.

Virtue lived with that pain. He had tried everything a noble’s creation of his status could to alleviate it but nothing worked even the smallest bit. Every time he heard them again, he felt the pain again.

He heard them constantly.

He learned to live with it.

Today his processor throbbed with it, The Words and morning light from the crack under the berth room door stabbing his optics and Virtue did not groan; he just darkened his optics and waited until he could focus on the ceiling above. Once it and all the walls of his rooms had been covered in intricate inlays of rare metals and expensive organic imports. Then, driven by the pain of the immediate aftermath of The Words, the fits had started. He would tear at those trappings of his noble status, unable to look, unable to see. He would tear torn at the expensive inlays, the intricate tapestries, the floor-coverings, the cushions of the berth… he would tear it all apart and when he couldn’t, when the walls resisted his pain-driven efforts, he had torn at them until he had torn himself—

Virtus had been furious, but Virtue, lost in The Words, was incapable of caring and barely noticed his creator’s punishments after for ruining his things.

The servants took pity where his creator had none. While he recovered from another fit, they cleared out his rooms. Furnishings were removed or replaced, the berth replaced with one from the servants’ quarters. Shelves of trinkets he had enjoyed before — those he hadn’t already broken — were squirreled away. Plain floors, the walls covered with gypsum plaster and sanded smooth, all the lights taken away and the window of the berth room covered with a sheet of steel bolted over it… all the trappings of nobility gone from his sight. If a prison cell held more comforts, at least the sight of his own rooms no longer provoked The Words further.

When he could focus in the dim room, he moved. The Words clung to his joints, making them heavy and stiff and Virtue nearly gave into the temptation to simply lay back down. Most orn he did, spending the day in power-save, listening to The Words, but today his creator required his presence, and this time he had threatened to throw his wayward creation into a smelter for real if he didn’t show up. Or so he said.

Virtue nearly called the bluff — would The Words leave him after he died, or would they continue to cling to his metal and haunt whoever was forged from the recycled alloys? — but rolled off the berth instead. Virtus probably wouldn’t actually kill him, and staying in bed didn’t make The Words go away. Punishment didn’t motivate him, but was tedious.

The first drop of cleanser made The Words burn like acid across his plating so he didn’t bother with a shower. The Words coiled in his tank, curdling the energon the butler tried to insist he drink, so he pretended until the servant turned away and then dumped the cube in a bowl for glitch mice to eat. The Words stabbed him between the optics and he clawed at his plating, scratching at it as though he could rip the pain from his metal, until the pain went back to normal.

As ready as he could be, he descended the stairs from his own suite to meet his creator. The Words lashing at him with every step. The worried and pitying optics of his servants followed him, but they said nothing, for no words they had could bridge the gulf between them and their charge.

.

.

Virtus was furious at Virtue’s unkempt appearance and sent for his own, unpitying, servants to scrub him whether his creation liked it or not. The bath and scrubbing burned like acid, like a smelter, but he didn’t fight it. It wasn’t worth it. One kind of pain or another, it didn’t matter. He’d come downstairs, and these orn he felt like that was all his creator could ask of him. He just sat there, optics dim, while cleanser evaporated off his armor. Virtus stood over him, trying to impose his will, and explained that his visitors were Very Important and Virtue was expected to act properly.

He sat there, unmoving, unblinking, and his creator took that as agreement.

.

.

Virtue listened intently as Virtus and his guests — whose names he hadn’t paid attention to — talked. He didn’t hear a word they said, but he listened nevertheless. The chorus of The Words changed, one voice stronger than the others. YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THIS repeated over and over, squeezing him until his vents rattled with each intake of air, unchanged. The chorus — the chorus was angry and concerned, vengeful and patient, and Virtue suffered for it.

But it was different, so he listened.

.

.

Slowly the chorus — once unified into a single indistinguishable voice — became many. The Words were the same, the pain the same, but sometimes one voice or two would be stronger than the others.

He couldn’t count them, but there were a few he heard over and over.

Curled up on the floor of his creator’s parlor after another fit, his servants wondering if it was safe to come in and clean up the mess, he named them. The Calm One. The Nervous One. The Dark One.

The Dark One was speaking now. The Words coiling around him with the promise of spilled fuel and emptied veins and greyed shells. A promise of cold fury. A promise of berserker rage. Energon would drip from these walls, The Dark One promised and to drown out pain with pain he clawed at his own plating, trying to rip The Words out —

.

.

YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THIS The Dark One and the Nervous One snarled together as he woke.

He was strapped down on a medical berth and he fought the restraints. The Words coated everything he saw with anger, disgust… wrongness… but then apathy seized his spark and he decided it wasn’t worth the effort and stilled. The Words crawled through his circuits in the voices of The Dark One and The Nervous One still, like prickles of ungrounded electricity…

“—pain he is experiencing is real.” That wasn’t The Words. That wasn’t the chorus of voices. Alien input. Virtue ignored it. “I could rewrite his circuits until he’s nothing but a drone and he’ll still feel it. He’d still have those fits.”

“I need a functional creation, Delirium.”

“I’m only a mnemosurgeon, Virtus. Have you tried prayer?”

Virtus scoffed, but Virtue was beyond hearing it.

.

.

He’d broken so many mirrors during his previous fits that when he’d started screaming for one, the servants had had to go requisition it from the nearest merchant enclave to get him to stop. They’d returned with the cheapest sheet of silver and glass the merchant had. Tarnished around the edges and already cracked, they expected him to smash this one too.

Instead he was transfixed by the scars.

He couldn’t see them, but he could hear them, The Words whispering painful pinpricks across his reflection. Four of them, tiny needle-marks at the base of his skull-armor and he couldn’t see them but he knew they were there and they whispered to him. Evil. Wrong. He let the mirror fall to the ground where it shattered to claw dig at the scars but he could not dig them from his metal any more than he could The Words.

The Calm One whispered comfort; The Dark One vengeance. Pain coiled around them both.

.

.

The next time Virtus came for him The Nervous One’s voice held a whisper of warning in The Words. YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THIS blazed across his mind and body like a firestorm. This time he fought Virtus with all the strength of his fits.

Bloodied and weak, his creator strapped him down, and The Words followed him into the dark.

When he woke, this time he needed no mirror; he could hear the invisible wounds on his own plating, and he was no more what Virtus wanted him to be than he had been before.

.

.

YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THIS crooned across his consciousness and woke him from recharge. Pain still sapped his strength, but The Dark One’s voice told him the time had come. His vengeance had arrived, if he wanted it. A crescendo of agreement followed from the rest of the chorus.

He followed them down the hall YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THIS echoing off the walls like bells. Like cymbals that crashed in time with his footsteps, until he came to the window. He opened the latch and peered out. The Words crooned at him from the air outside, vengeance, vengeance, vengeance… He stepped back and let the ghost in.

.

.

“Do you know what’s happening?” The big red and blue mech, the one they called Prime asked him. The Words were quiet, barely a whisper and he ignored the big mech to follow them.

“Do you know where you are?” It wasn’t The Words. It wasn’t one of the voices. Alien input.

He chased them down into his consciousness, chasing the pain he still lived with every moment. The Dark One dominated the chorus as it had for… ever it seemed now. He could hear it in the air, in the metal, in the flickering light. The voice coiled around him, promises and pain. Vengeance and justice. The ghost had come, and he had been passed from hand to hand, each touch crooning in the Dark One’s voice, and eventually had brought him to this place that sang with The Dark One and now he could hear nothing else…

YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THIS

YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THIS

YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THIS

 _“Arete, you will look at me.”_  That voice — that command — as strong as any of the chorus and more immediate, more real, snapped his optics up to meet the blue ones of the large mech who’s plating sang with The Words, the whole of the chorus. They coiled within him. Virtue wanted to look away, but he had long since become numb to the largest share of the pain, and that command left no room for anything but obedience. “That’s good,” said the mech, his voice his own, holding only echoes of the chorus. “Now, you will tell me: do you understand what is happening?”

He did. “We’re going to be killed.” He couldn’t say that was a bad thing. The pain and the scars… again he wondered, as he had not since before the scars, if The Words would haunt the next one to be forged from his alloys. But first The Dark One had promised vengeance. For the scars. For what they meant. “You’re going to kill us. You’re going to kill our creators first.”

“Valkyrie, is this true?” The mech released him from the commands, and The Words came rushing back into his awareness, drowning out everything.

Another one who had been claimed by The Dark One came up, heard only by the chorus that sang in her flesh. “Prowl arrested the creations. He’s still cataloguing the evidence, but it may be impossible to tell which of them followed their parents willingly and which ones had to be coerced like this poor spark. And especially which are not innocent, but free of coercion.”

“I can tell who is telling the truth. For this, I will.”

“Of course, Prime. This is a more complicated judgement than truth or lack of it, but Primus’ truth will certainly help.” Virtue didn’t see Valkyrie look at him. He didn’t see her cold hard optics narrow. “What do you hear? What are they saying to you?” He didn’t answer. She had no power to cut through The Words. “Prime, ask him.”

“I don’t like—“

“He can’t hear us, Prime. He’s listening to something else. If we are ever going to get sensible testimony that needs to change, but the spell I know won’t work until I know what he’s hearing.”

He heard the one called Prime look at him again. The Words reflected the weight of that gaze. “Alright,” He agreed reluctantly and the dark femme reached out, touching Virtue’s helm and murmuring something, a chant that held echoes of The Words, _“Arete,”_ and The Words were swept away again in favor of this mech’s voice, _“What are they saying?”_

YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THIS

YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THIS

YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THIS

YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE—

Virtue gasped, crying out. They were gone! He screamed. They were gone, gone, gone…

“Hush,” said the femme in The Dark One’s voice, and he quieted. He looked at her, and there was something missing, something… The pain! He had heard the voice without The Words, and without The Words there was no pain… He shuddered. He cried out again… _painlessness hurt as much as pain had_. “You’ve been through quite the ordeal, young one. Sleep. Recover. The rest can wait.”

Voices murmured at the edge of his hearing as he obeyed, but The Words were gone.

.

.

.

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Optimus, in his POV at the beginning of this chapter makes some assumptions about the spark types of the others with him that aren’t entirely true. Mirage, Megatron and Valkyrie are definitely Mortilus sparks, but Ironhide and Prowl are more vague… Optimus is making assumptions based off of Ironhide's warrior persona and Prowl’s devotion to justice, but neither of them are, necessarily, Mortilus sparks just because of those personality traits. Which god(s) are they associated with? That’s for me to know and you to guess…

Six random Cybertronians in a room should not be overly weighted towards affinity with one god. Five gods. Five spark types. A random sampling would have an overlap, but not so much overlap as was in this room now. But they were not a random sampling. Instead need had called one to another’s side and from there, like had called to like, need answering need, until they were so heavily weighted towards the god of death he felt like he was drowning in it. 

All five of his companions were devoted to that god.

He mourned that Death had so completely dominated his tenure as Prime that all his close advisors were Mortilus sparks. A bad omen.

Mirage disagreed. Primus and Adaptus had dominated the omens of the beginning of his reign. The Festivals themselves… they marked the true beginnings and there were no clearer omens. Primus had presided over his ascension and Adaptus over the beginning of the revolution. But if that was so, why had there been so much death… because all changes began with the death of what had come before. New forgings started with recycled metal. It wasn’t the omen that defined him as Prime, just a necessary pruning away of rust before it spread too far.

Optimus tried to believe that, but it was difficult. The cells beneath the temples were filled almost to bursting with those who had conspired to kill him, warp the minds and sparks of their fellow Cybertronians and rule over the planet as tyrants. Conspiracies had reached far and wide, each arrest and seizure of evidence had uncovered more who would defy the laws of Cybertron in their quests for power. This latest… Dark Magic. Shadowplay… And something else.

“What happened to him?” he turned away from the window looking down at the medical room Virtue was in, and asked the others in the room around him. The shell left sleeping in the temple’s medical facility bore no resemblance to the arrogant spark Mirage had expected to confront when he’d stole into Virtus’ manor to open the doors for Prowl’s troops. Instead, Virtue had been a silent, dull wreck of faded paint and fresh scratches.

Valkyrie answered. “His Sight was blasted opened traumatically and fixated on the first words the Gods said to him.” Only Mirage looked like this was sufficient explanation. After a moment of expectant silence, she continued. “It is not actually uncommon among Seers for that ability to develop because of trauma. Had his creator brought him to any temple when his fits started, we could have helped.” She sniffed arrogantly.

“You can’t tell me you’re believing this,” Megatron rumbled from Optimus’ side. He should have felt threatened by the gladiator’s frame and field, but instead Optimus found him comforting. Megatron’s spark beat in time with his own, and he knew that it was a lifetime of seeing the temples as bystanders to the suffering of others that manifested as disbelief and criticism. Megatron had not fully adjusted to standing with a Prime that used the priesthoods as the swords and shields of justice the gods had intended. As much needed allies against a political caste almost universally set against him, Optimus knew and trusted them just as he had known to bring Mirage to the temple of Mortilus for combat training. The Matrix. His Consort continued, “It’s only an anachronism that our trials are held in temples in the first place. One that, I am not truly criticizing, but I do feel it should be examined.”

“Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack,” said Prowl and Prime gave a fond flicker of his EM field, which never failed to make the Praxan’s sensor panels perk up, just a tiny bit. Prowl didn’t believe either, but he had a keen respect for rank — and the church of Mortilus — and his priority trees gave Mirage’s opinions and beliefs more weight than anyone else’s except Prime’s. And Mirage believed in the gods and in Seers and quite a few other things that Prowl didn’t.

“Maybe we should examine the anachronism that made you consort, Megatron,” Ironhide snarked.

“Enough,” Optimus said before this could get out of hand.

“Agreed,” Mirage said mildly, his first contribution to the discussion. Optimus knew his friend appreciated Prowl’s defense of his beliefs. Mirage was difficult for others to read, but Optimus, or Orion before, had never had that trouble. Now he knew that the ease with which he read others’ EM fields —including what they made the effort to hide — down to the smallest flicker of self-deception was unique. When they’d met though… Orion had been furious with his fellow archivists for their continued callus rejection of someone who was so obviously hurting after being rejected by his creator, when in truth Mirage had been very, very good at hiding it. “It,” Mirage continued, “actually doesn’t matter from our perspective if Virtue’s problems were caused by the traumatic manifestation of Sight, Shadowplay or a combination of the two. It won’t change what we do. The evidence is that he has been a victim of Shadowplay. The evidence is that Valkyrie’s efforts helped him. Therefore it makes the most sense for him to be left in the care of the temples of Primus and Mortilus.”

The temples of Primus had claimed they could help the Shadowplay victims. Their original code may be too damaged to recover, but many could — eventually — regain some semblance of their lives. They would never be who they were before. Trials would still be held for any who had committed or were accused of crimes, but Valkyrie had assured him that, though the relevant laws had not seen use in a very long time, no one would be punished for what they weren’t responsible for. No one would be executed at least. Whether a punishment other than execution was appropriate would depend on how independent the final personality was; the others…Shadowplay did not always leave functional personalities behind and that was an undeserved punishment in Prime’s opinion.

Optimus still wasn’t comfortable with how everyone looked to him to confirm that this was the course of action that would be followed in regards to another sentient spark, but if they needed him to approve of this, he could see no fault in giving the care young Virtue needed to recover whatever he could. “We’ll transfer him to the temple of Primus with the rest of the Shadowplay victims as soon as we can. Valkyrie.”

“I’ll see to it, and arrange to visit when I can. He Heard Mortilus when I spoke to him.”

“Good,” Optimus turned to regard Prowl, who’s sensor panels still ducked submissively when he had the Prime’s direct attention. “Status of the investigations into the creations’ involvement?” Most of them had been arrested, if not as accomplices in their creators’ crimes, then for ones of their own as well. Cybertronians came from Vector Sigma fully capable of thought and moral judgements, and in all castes but noble they went directly into the jobs they’d been sparked for. It hadn’t even occurred to Prime that the younger nobles might not be responsible for what they’d ignored or participated in at their creators’ requests. Virtue… hadn’t been the only one with Shadowplay scars when Optimus had commanded they be searched for. Horrified he’d immediately ordered Mirage’s Cybertron Intelligence/Investigation Agency to reexamine what they had, looking for signs of other sorts of coercion.

“Ongoing,” was Prowl’s immediate response. “Right now though it looks like it varied quite a bit. Other than the ones that had Shadowplay scars… guilt or innocence is for the courts to decide, of course, but some of the preliminary evidence suggests there might have been coercion in some of the cases. If the Prime is amenable to conducting interviews on-record…” Prowl never asked. It had taken time for him to be able to speak in the Prime’s presence without another’s constant assurance… of what, exactly Optimus didn’t know. Prowl didn’t fear him, exactly, but his respect was so instinctive, so complete, that it sometimes appeared he did. “…honest testimony may prove to be the difference between confirmation bias and facts.”

“Of course. I have already discussed doing so with Valkyrie,” a polite way of saying that he’d all but made it a Primal Decree. No one blinked except Mirage, who gave him a sidelong look. The spy did not have the Prime’s ability to tell truth from falsehood by EM flicker alone, but he certainly knew Orion well enough to guess what had actually happened. Optimus was determined to follow those trials closely. Shadowplay was easy to identify, but other forms of coercion did not leave needle-marks. But at the same time, he could agree — in theory — with Prowl’s concern that this new concern for coercion would turn any hint of it into a guilty spark walking free. Truth… he’d been tested by the temples and the priests had all confirmed: Prime saw through all lies, no matter how subtle. Only the Shadowplay victims seemed to confuse that sense of others’ EM fields, making him uncertain if everything they said was truth, or if everything they said was a lie.

Mortilus had claimed dominance of Cybertron’s fate for the moment it seemed. But Prime didn’t want a witch-hunt. Prowl had caught all the witches — the so-called mnemosurgeons — and there was no need for those who simply disagreed with him to suffer. There were criminals enough to sacrifice… and Optimus hoped the death god would be satisfied with them, leaving the innocent to grieve, rebuild and move on.

.

.

Virtue woke. He didn’t realize he was awake. He hadn’t heard The Words as the first thing in his awareness so he just… lay there, waiting to wake up.

He’d forgotten what peaceful recharge was like. The Words didn’t leave him, even in sleep, but there were orns he had imagined that they did, that his lack of awareness of them meant that they left him in peace… Like this. This was what he’d imagined a peaceful recharge being like.

_...you are awake _ … it was one of the chorus-voices he didn’t have a name for and he didn’t understand, at first, what it had said. It had never spoken by itself. It had never spoken louder than the other three. It wasn’t The Words. But then there was… memory. The femme and the other one, the big red and blue mech whose commands had swept away The Words leaving only obedience. His metal had been made from The Words, but when he spoke Virtue had heard him and not the endless repeat of pain and data. And…The femme who’d spoken with the Dark One’s voice, she had been chanting… something that had echoed with The Words even as they had been snatched away from him.

…. _ you are awake, my spark _ … “Come on sweetspark. Just open your optics for me. Let’s get some energon in you and then we’ll let you get back to sleep.” It was the chorus-voice and it was not and he opened his optics just to see.

He anticipated pain as he finally opened his optics to the bright sunlight that sufficed the room, but instead the light soothed his processor and he found himself looking up into the mech’s yellow optics and staring. He smiled, the little platelets around the lenses rearranging into so perfect a smile that it didn’t matter that he had no mouth to smile with. Virtue blinked. The smile deepened.

…  _ you are brave, my spark _ … “There’s a good spark,” The mech said softly. “Let me help you sit so that we don’t flood your intake system.” Bluish grey hands gently helped him up. Under their guidance he ended up leaning on the grey mech’s comfortable bulk, lavender rotors splayed protectively around them. It didn’t hurt. Instead it felt nice. Gentle hands didn’t force-feed him the cube, but helped him hold it, guiding his hands to drink. Slow little sips that didn’t flood his intakes as promised.

He kept expecting The Words to seize his tank and curdle the energon. He expected to purge all over the nice mech. Neither happened. The voice whispered through the air, the very metal of the walls, and crooned comfort in time with the mech’s encouragements.

He didn’t understand what was happening. It had been so long since he had last spoken. He remembered screaming during his fits but that felt somehow different, and his voice cracked on his first attempt. “What—“

The grey mech smiled again, EM flickering with approval, and the voice whispered just out of his hearing. … _ this place is safe _ … “You’re in the temple of Primus in Iacon. These are our medical facilities. I’m Gleam. I was a nurse before joining the priesthood.”

Virtue just blinked stupidly.

The mech — Gleam — just set the empty cube aside and petted his helm a few times, which whispered to him softly, almost unheard over the mech’s near-silent fans. Pain had once been a constant strain on his system; now it’s absence was just as tiring and he shook his head trying to clear it. To no avail. Even after a painless recharge, after energon, his systems were still slowing down into recharge without his consent. … _ sleep now, my spark _ … “You look like you’re about slip back in recharge already. You want me to lay you back down now or wait until you drift off?”

The idea of a choice was more tiring, more frustrating, more confusing than actually being able to drink the energon he’d been given. He couldn’t think. After so long, apathy was so much easier than any sort of caring.

Grey hands started to lean him back onto the berth, and without thought, Virtue moved faster than he thought he could outside a fit. He grabbed the mech and clung. His fingers dug into the mech’s armor and he wedged himself into the mech’s side under the rotors. He listened to the whispers in his plating.

The mech didn’t push him away, didn’t punish him for his insolence. The contact didn’t hurt.

Instead, engulfed in an EM field that felt like comfort and whispered love in the voice of that unknown member of the chorus, Virtue drowsed, then dosed, then finally fell into recharge.

.

.

.

tbc


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was the chapter holding the whole thing up. Finally got a writing group challenge to write a story set in the Cybertronian version of this building (http://rizobact.tumblr.com/post/138259776061/autobot-stormshadow-farbenfrei). Don’t ask me what made me look at all that light and glass and rainbows and think “DEATH TEMPLE” because if I knew I’d have to go to the same detox program as SGProwl…

He woke again. 

This time it was only soft and warm and painless whispers that weren’t speaking to him before he fell back into recharge.

Then he woke again, still without pain.

This time he recognized the voice, that unknown member of the chorus. No clear words, not The Words, but a faint susurrous of half-heard half-words that individually made no sense, but together promised comfort and implored calm. This was a nice voice that wanted to help him. He wondered what he should name this voice, if it was going to join the others in haunting him.

… _ calm. we’re going to help _ … “…never seen anything like it. The loop sheltered his personality from the sorcerer’s efforts.”

The Dark One answered. …  _ rip them to shreds for their defiance _ …“A mnemosurgeon does not have the will to defy the gods.”

Virtue tensed, anticipating pain, but it never came. Just whispers at the edge of his hearing. … _ brave spark _ … “He’s awake. Calm, sweetspark. We’re just checking that your code’s intact.”

_ …death… _ “I will fetch an enforcer for the interview, if you believe he is coherent enough for that.” He heard the other mech leave as he powered on his optics and waited for pain.

Again it didn’t come and he slowly relaxed. Gleam looked back at him, smile still in his optics.  _ …safe… _ “The enforcers just want to ask you questions before we start filling in the blanks for you.”

Enforcers? Questions?

Could he answer questions?

Carefully he tried. “Alright?”

Gleam smiled in response. … _ bright and brave _ … “You’ll do fine. Just remember… there aren’t any wrong answers. Will you do that for me?”

“Ye—“… _ you could do nothing less _ … he winced as he heard the nice-voice speak along with him. He shook his head, still marveling at the lack of dizziness, the lack of pain. “Yes,” he managed, more firmly, despite the whisper.

.

.

The Dark One whispered in every echo of every mech that walked, stomped or stalked through the great hall of the Temple. This was his place. All who entered would be weighed by him. Only the dead were beyond his judgement.

For once though, Virtue was more interested in what he could see than what he could hear. He had never been in one of the temples of Mortilus before. His creator had thought him too young to bother with taking him whenever he'd been called to one. This one was huge and made entirely of iridescent glass. Rainbows flickered through the high vaulted space, camouflaged the white metal support pillars and reflected off the plating of mechs of all colors.

There was no markings to determine who stood where, but there they were in organized concentric circles on the tiered floor nevertheless. In the center on the lowest tier was the accused, kneeling, chained to the floor, which Enforcers only did to criminals they particularly disliked. Thick heavy cuffs holding his legs, arms and head in place and the tautness of the chains ensured he didn't move. This prisoner had been given no leeway to move at all by the Enforcer who’d brought him in. Before him was the altar, though in the ring of other witnesses where Virtue had been placed couldn't see the pattern of glass on glass that was the altar itself.

Across from the accused was the Priest-Judge. Virtue couldn't tell if it was the same one who'd broken the spell on him, or the ones who'd talked to him before because she -- the voice was a femme's that still echoed with the Dark One's words beneath her own -- was wearing the traditional armor and robes of a Priest-Judge. The glass armor and glass-weave robes made her practically invisible in the light and rainbows of the temple.

Around them paced the lawyer-archivists. They spoke primarily to the Priest-Judge, but also, less frequently, to the audience. One presented the evidence accumulated by the enforcers and other sources. The other lawyer to argue for the accused, who was not allowed to speak until the verdict was rendered. Sometimes, when the enforcers were feeling especially vindictive they -- as this one was -- were muzzled, their mouths chained shut and an electrical shocker placed on their vocalizers to turn every mistaken attempt into a scream. His creator had called the practice barbaric, but it was used so infrequently that like-minded nobles had not been able to get the support needed to change the customs of the temple. Virtue had heard many screams coming from beneath the floor, as other prisoners tried to speak out of turn, but this one had not.

Witnesses arranged around them were called forward one at a time to be questioned by the lawyers. To these Virtue listened, as he had been taught to listen these last few decaorn since the spell had been broken. All the voices of the Chorus whispered around, through the testimonies. The Dark One laughed as evidence accumulated towards a conviction, while the others cautioned for patience. The nice voice, the one he'd been told was Primus, and which he couldn't really refute since he had heard that one in every eddy of air in His temple and in every word of His priests, wanted truth. That voice was sorrowful that all this was necessary, but looked forward to welcoming His sparks back to Him so that he could learn and grow and pass the lessons on to those sparks would come after... The other he had not heard clearly before the spell had been broken spoke only when one of the lawyers made a clever argument or when one of the witnesses lied... Virtue didn't know that one's name, but now he knew to listen for it to discern lies...

Beyond the witnesses, in the outermost circle, stood the audience. This trial was watched by very few. An archivist to record, some very few others, and the large red and blue mech who was the only one Virtue had heard with no Voice whispering under his words. They crawled through his plating, vibrated through the air when the mech came close, but when he spoke the Voices were silent.

This was the Prime.

As another witness was called, this one speaking along with the Calm One's whispers. A good witness, reliable with none of that unknown prankster who was trying to derail the trial... Virtue shook his head. He thought about his place in the witness' circle. When the Enforcer had spoken to him, the Dark One walking with him in his footsteps but the Nervous One muttering along with his questions, Virtue had been barely able to understand what the questions meant. Yes, he remembered Delirium (he flinched as the nice-Primus voice had snarled in anger at the mention of the mech's name). He remembered being strapped down, the scars... he'd heard the word mnemosurgeon, but he didn't know what it meant. No he didn't actually remember the procedure, all he remembered was the Voices drowning out everything with their rage...

The enforcer had looked uncomfortable then, and said that unfortunately the Voices weren't admissible in court. Then he'd changed the subject. Yes, he knew the names and faces of his creators associates, yes he remembered what they talked about, yes he'd participated in the conversations before the Voices had made that impossible, but not often as his creator was particular about who he spoke to. Yes, he remembered the mechs he hadn't been allowed to talk to...

Now, when he was called up he would have to answer the same questions again.

They weren't hard questions, but hearing the lawyer instead of the Voices chattering back and forth as they spoke was going to be exhausting.

Finally he was called up to the front of the witness' ring to be questioned. He threaded his way through the crowd of witnesses, trying not to brush up against their plating and flinch when the Voices occasionally yelled through the contact.

The accused glared at him as he took his place. The Dark One promised the silenced mech would die. Virtue barely noticed. The Dark One had been promising vengeance on his behalf since before he could hear the words properly. This was the first time he had been this close to one of Mortilus' altars. It was just a pattern of glass tiles on the floor, forming a circular maze. When energon was spilled on it, the mech's lifeblood would flow over it and fill the cracks between one glass tile and its neighbors, outlining the meditative aid in bright glowing blue.

The prosecution lawyer paced over to him. The rainbow light made the exact shade of his plating difficult to see, but his trim was dark, black maybe. ... _ you know what would be funny. _ .. the chaos-whisperer spoke as the lawyer looked at him seriously. Virtue tried to listen to the lawyer, but the Voice kept whispering. ... _ you are going to make all these people absolutely choke on their fuel... come on. admit it... it's hilarious _ ...

"I'm sorry," he managed when he realized the lawyer was waiting for an answer and he didn't know what sort of answer to give. "Could you repeat the question?"

The rainbows from the windows also made it difficult to distinguish optic color, but he thought the lawyer's might have been blue. They softened in understanding. "I asked if you could state your full name for the record?"

"Arete," he stated, pausing to let the archivist finish rendering the complicated glyph, "My chosen name is Virtue." Or it was. He might change it after this was over.

"Virtue," the dark-trimmed lawyer conceded. With a few of the witnesses one or the other lawyers had tried using the Vector Sigma names while questioning them, but his was complicated. Which the Voice thought was funny and laughed along with the mech's concession... he'd planned to treat Virtue the same, then. That Voice liked disrupting plans even more than it liked lies. "Tell me, do you know what shadowplay is?"

"No," he answered.

"No? Not even a little? No one's told you anything about it?"

"No. I keep getting told I need to be able to answer questions like this without hindsight knowledge."

A couple of mechs tittered -- not quite a laugh, not in this serious place dominated by the Dark One's Voice -- along with the chaos-whisperer's cackling.

The other lawyer, a light grey mech that seemed ethereal in the light, stalked around to Virtue's other side, asking quite reasonably. "If you don't know what Shadowplay is, how can you attest that the accused performed it."

The Voice snickered as the first lawyer just folded his arms over his chest. They were getting to the Voice's punchline and Virtue rather wished he knew the joke. He didn't know if it was something  _ he'd _ find funny at all. Still, the dark trimmed mech did not protest the question, and he was supposed to answer everything honestly.

Even if he'd been inclined to lie, he knew he wouldn't. He did not like the sound of the chaos-whisperer's voice in his own words, and he didn't know if anyone else present could hear it too. He thought the Priest-Judge might... "I can't."

The chaos-whisperer snickered and Virtue had to strain to hear, as the grey lawyer continued. "So as a witness you are incapable of testifying that the accused either performed shadowplay or employed others to do it for him?"

"I can't say he didn't either."

The lawyer paced away, addressing the Priest-Judge. "Your Honor, I believe that this witness should be removed from the circle and his name struck from the official record. What say Mortilus?"

... _ burn in torment until your plating melts _ ... The Dark One did not want Virtue removed from the room at all. He thought that maybe the Priest-Judge heard the words too, but she didn't answer right away. Instead she addressed the lawyer still standing near Virtue, the chaos-whisperer snickering in his shadow. "Archivist Steelsight, you have one question with which to justify this witness' presence before the altar."

"Of course." The dark trimmed mech didn't take his maybe-blue optics off Virtue. "Would you be willing to show the court your scars?"

The accused jerked in his chains. His first protest since his arrest died in his vocalizer, strangled by the electronic muzzle. Instead, Virtus screamed.

.

.

.

End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Willing to answer questions in comments about the trial, since I'm not going to be writing anymore of it.


End file.
